Life-Cycle Assessment of Buildings

Abstract

The chapter presents a complete overview of LCA applied to buildings. After a brief introduction on the origin and developments of the LCA, it describes four steps of the LCA methodology, according to the framework of the International standards of ISO 14040 series. Then, the authors focus on the LCA applied to the building sector and on the standard EN 15978. They identify the main issues related to the application of the methodology to buildings, such as the selection of the functional unit, the systems boundaries,the environmental indicators, etc. In the context of the sustainability, a brief overview on the economic and social aspects of buildings and on the available building life-cycle evaluation tools is given. The authors also discuss simplified approaches for LCA in construction and different relevant parameters of LCA of buildings, which can affect the final results. At the end, some examples of the sustainability assessment of new and retrofitted buildings are presented